A Blue-eared pheasant (Crossoptilon auritum) is pictured at the aviary El Nido, on September 27, 2011, in Ixtapaluca, near Mexico City. The aviary El Nido is the third largest in the world, with more than 320 species of birds and more than 3,000 specimens in their facilities. At El Nido they are working on the reproduction of endangered species. #

Residents look at a 6.4 meter (21-foot) saltwater crocodile, which is suspected of having attacked several people, after it was caught in Nueva Era in Bunawan town, Agusan del Sur, Philippines, on September 4, 2011. The crocodile captured on Sunday evening weighs more than 1000 kg and is the largest crocodile caught in the country to date, according to the Palawan Wildlife Rescue and Conservation Center. #

Some of the 20 million resident bats emerge from Bracken Cave in Bracken, Texas, on August 31, 2011. A depleting insect population has forced millions of bats around drought-stricken Texas to emerge before nightfall for food runs, making them more susceptible to natural predators. Some experts have already noticed fewer bats emerging from caves and have seen evidence that more infant bats are showing up dead, hinting at a looming population decline. #

Female Amur tiger Iris licks its 7-week-old cub during one of their first walks in an open-air cage at the Royev Ruchey zoo in Russia's Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, on September 29, 2011. #

Birds entered in the 86th Budgerigar World Championship are displayed in cages at the Dome in Doncaster, England, on October 1, 2011. The two day annual event has 2,321 entries in 740 classes. #

An African antelope in Tripoli's zoo in Libya, on September 12, 2011. Animals in the zoo, which was considered one the best in Africa according to officials, suffered as the situation worsened during the days leading up to the capture of the capital Tripoli by fighters loyal to the National Transitional Council. The manager of the zoo is appealing for international help. #

Indian army personnel use a bulldozer during a rescue mission to save a wild elephant trapped in a water reservoir tank at Bengdubi army cantonment area some 25 km from Siliguri on August 30, 2011. A wild elephant cub fell into the water reservoir tank as a herd crossed the area. Army personnel along with wildlife elephant squad of Mahananda wildlife sanctuary joined forces to save the animal. #

This image provided by the National Museum of National History in Paris, France, shows a blind new species, distantly related to the squat lobster family, which was found in 2005 in hydrothermal vents where the East Pacific Rise meets Antarctica. A new study estimates that Earth has almost 8.8 million species, but the vast majority of those species are types of animals yet to be discovered. And they could be in our own backyard, scientist say. #

Melissa Sinclair and Matt Auld prepare seven year old Maisie the Highland cow, ahead of the International Highland Cattle Show being held at Pollock Country Park on September 15, 2011 in Glasgow, Scotland. This year's event hosts 30 breeders from across the UK attending with more than 100 head of cattle competing in 12 classes. #

A puppy stares from behind a fence in a stray dog shelter in Bucharest, Romania on September 26, 2011. In 2006, September 28th was declared "World Rabies Day" as an initiative by the Global Alliance for Rabies Control. According to recent European Union statistics quoted by local media, Romania has the highest number of wild animals infected with rabies, mainly foxes and wolves. #

Fire ants and other insects swarm on top of each other in water on the shoulder of Louisiana Highway 23 near Myrtle Grove, Louisiana, after fleeing flood waters from rain and storm surge from Tropical Storm Lee in Plaquemines Parish on September 4, 2011. #

Ducklings at an incubating farm outside Hanoi, Vietnam, on September 7, 2011. Virologists warned on Tuesday that there was no vaccine against a mutant strain of H5N1 bird flu now spreading in China and Vietnam and called for closer monitoring of the disease in poultry and wild birds to stop it spreading to people. #

In this television frame grab from KIMT in Mason City, Iowa, slain Navy SEAL Jon Tumilson's dog Hawkeye lays next to his casket during funeral services in Rockford, Iowa, on August 19, 2011. Tumilson, age 35, was one of 30 American soldiers killed in Afghanistan on August 6 when their helicopter was shot down during a mission to help fellow troops who had come under fire. #

Two grizzly bears walk across the tundra on Sunday, September 11, 2011, in Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska. According to the park service there are 300-350 grizzly bears in the park. #

Christine Janks, president of Carson Springs Wildlife Foundation and Sanctuary, visits her three-and-a-half-year-old giraffe, Grace, as a sheep in her yard stands by in Gainesville, Florida, on June 30, 2011. Barry and Christine Janks have slowly grown a population of exotic animals since 2007. Many are abandoned pets or traveling circus animals brought here by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission or animal rescue groups. #

The eye of an elephant, seen during the the 10th annual King's Cup Elephant Polo Tournament in Hua Hin, nearly 160 km (99 miles) south of Bangkok, Thailand, on September 6, 2011. #

A Rabbit jumps over a hurdle at an obstacle course the 5th Open Rabbit Sport Tournament on August 28, 2011 in Rommerz, Germany. Eighty rabbits competed in light-weight, middle-weight and jumping-for-points categories at today's tournament that is based on Kanin Hop, or Rabbit Hopping. Rabbit Hopping is a growing trend among pet rabbit owners in Central Europe and the first European Championships are scheduled to be held later this year in Switzerland. #

Medical Center paramedic Don Brod, left, gives oxygen to Charlie, a cat belonging to Jack VanSlooten, right, at an apartment complex fire on September 30, 2011, in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Several residents were forced to jump from the second floor to escape the flames. No injuries were reported. #

A four-day old African spurred tortoise, Geochelone sulcata, one of eight babies, sunbathes on the head of its mother in their enclosure in Nyiregyhaza Animal Park in Nyiregyhaza, Hungary, on September 27, 2011. #

Piglets nurse at a clandestine pig farm in Pamplona Alta shantytown in Lima, Peru, on September 30, 2011. Some 105 families are raising pigs close to urban areas with poor hygienic conditions, resulting in uncontrolled quality of pork which is delivered to several markets in the city. #

Jason Mayfield, director of Southeast Texas Bear Refuge, embraces Ami, a 9-month-old black bear, inside a cage on September 16, 2011 at the refuge just north of Willis, Texas. The purpose of the Southeast Texas Bear Refuge is to provide care and welfare for orphaned, abused, abandoned, neglected, confiscated or captive bred surplus black bears. #

A frail-looking white tail doe stands by a pump fed water tank on a ranch that Randy Bolf leases for his herd of cattle, near San Angelo, Texas on August 6, 2011. Bolf said he is unsure what will happen to the wildlife population on the ranch that resides in the drought-stricken region that endures triple-digit heat daily. But according to Bolf, most of the wildlife rely heavily on the few watering holes he maintains for their source of water. #

A buffalo struggles as people prepare to sacrifice it at a temple of Hindu goddess Durga at Rani Village on the outskirts of Gauhati, India, on October 4, 2011. Every year, hundreds of devotees arrive with buffalos, goats, pigeons and ducks to sacrifice them during the Durga Puja festival. #

A lion-tailed macaque cub is carried by his mother outside the enclosure at the Zoo in Berlin, on Tuesday, August 23, 2011. The cub was born on July 28, 2011 in the Berlin Zoo. #

Narcotic, a Sphynx cat, looks at a judge during an international cat beauty show in Bucharest, Romania, on October 1, 2011. Up to 300 cats mainly from countries in central and eastern Europe entered the two day competition. #

A juvenile female Virginia opossum bares its teeth as a strategy of self-defense at the home of Leslie Bale, the president of the Opossum Society of the United States, in Bellflower, California, on July 22, 2011. The possum and opossum are both marsupials but the Virginia opossum is native to North America and the possum is native to Australia. #

Ana Julia Torres kisses Jupiter, a lion who was rescued from a circus 12 years ago, on September 17, 2011, at Villa Lorena shelter, in Cali, Colombia. Torres, a 52 year-old teacher, founded the Villa Lorena animal shelter 17 years ago, which protects about 600 animals seized from drug traffickers, circuses, animal traffickers or abandoned by their owners. #

A black-footed ferret peeks out at the Phoenix Zoo in Phoenix, Arizona. They are kept in the zoo's new ferret conservation building, part of a captive-breeding program that has helped pull the species from the razor's edge of extinction. #

The last bull to be killed during the last bullfight is removed from the arena at La Monumental bullring in central Barcelona, on September 25, 2011. Fans and opponents of bullfighting crowded into Barcelona on Sunday for the last "corrida" to be held in the city's La Monumental arena following a ban on the traditional Spanish spectacle in Catalonia #

A seemingly intoxicated moose is discovered entangled in an apple tree in Goteborg, Sweden late Tuesday September 6 2011. Per Johansson, 45, says he heard a roar from his vacationing neighbor's garden in southwestern Sweden late Tuesday and went to have a look. There, he found a female moose kicking about in the tree. The animal was likely drunk from eating fermented apples. #

An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man carries his daughter in one hand and a chicken in the other during the Kaparot ritual ahead of the holiday of Yom Kippur in Jerusalem's Mea Shearim neighbourhood, on October 4, 2011. Kaparot is a custom connected to Yom Kippur, where white chickens are slaughtered as a symbolic gesture of atonement. The slaughtered chickens are then donated to the poor. #

This image provided by the San Diego Zoo shows an affectionate lowland paca named Poco at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, on September 30, 2011 in San Diego. This is the first time a paca has been hand raised at the San Diego Zoo or the Safari Park. #

Marc Hayes, a research scientist for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, pushes a Passive Integrated Transponder (PIT) tag under the skin of an Oregon spotted frog that will help in tracking the juvenile frog raised at the Woodland Park Zoo. Hayes and zoo staff were preparing to release 700 endangered Oregon spotted frogs raised at the zoo for the spotted-frog-restoration project next month. The frogs are near extinction because of the loss of habitat, disease and nonnative species that prey on them like the American bullfrog, according to the zoo. #

A man uses a steel stick to move dogs before slaughtering them at a wholesale supplier of live dogs, one of the biggest in town, in Hanoi, Vietnam on Monday, October 3, 2011. Dog meat is a delicacy in Vietnam that is often on the menu at parties, especially in the north. Restaurants specializing in barbecued dog are especially popular at the end of each lunar month when men dine on canine in hopes of purging bad luck. #

A photo provided by the Reid Park Zoo in Tucson, Arizona, shows a rare tamandua, or lesser anteater, born at the zoo on August 10, 2011. Zoo animal care staff reports the offspring, of which its sex is it to be determined, is gaining weight and appears to be healthy. #

Officers Johnny Martinez (left) and Mark Webb, with Santa Fe City Animal Services, and Blake Swanson (right), with New Mexico Game and Fish, carry a female black bear that was tranquilized and removed from a back yard in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on August 9, 2011. #

A Dalmatian pelican nestles its head in its feathers as falling rain leaves water droplets on its feathers at the Berlin Zoo on September 9, 2011 in Berlin, Germany. #